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Documents shed new light on York board travel

Dozens of flights to London. Multiple visits to Finland. And a trip to sunny Hawaii.

Those are just some of the international destinations staff and trustees at the York Region District School Board have travelled to in recent years for “professional development” paid by local taxpayers, according to new documents obtained by the Star.

Todd Silverman, a parent in the York Region District School Board, has taken the board to task over international travel by trustees and staff funded by taxpayers. Documents he obtained through access to information requests found the board spent more than $150,000 on foreign travel since 2014. (Carlos Osorio / Toronto Star)

The school board is already under investigation by the Ministry of Education for the lack of transparency around European excursions that took place last fall — including why one trustee visited Finland three times, and why the current director of education, finance director and the former trustee chair travelled to the Netherlands without telling fellow staff and trustees of their plans. The investigators are also looking into the board’s handling of racist and Islamophobic incidents, and complaints about ineffective equity policies, and are due to report their findings by April 7.

But new documents spanning from 2014 to 2016 suggest those trips are just the tip of the iceberg, and just two of a long and expensive list of international travel that has lacked disclosure or follow up.

“I don’t believe my children’s school or class benefits from any of these trips,” said parent Todd Silverman, who has long been critical of board travel, and filed a similar freedom of information request in 2012, that led to a temporary ban on international travel at the time. “Transparency is completely missing,” he said.

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The new documents, filed by Silverman, show a superintendent who went to Finland three times in three years — including a trip just weeks before his retirement in 2016; A senior staffer who went to Hawaii for a conference, and spent $1,600 on a two-night hotel stay; And a trip to London in 2015, attended by 15 people, including the board’s communications director, Licinio Miguelo and finance director, Wanda Muirhead.

“I am hard-pressed to figure out what administrative staff can deliver to a classroom,” said Silverman. The total cost of the seven trips was more than $150,000, and involved over 60 people.

In response to questions from the Star, the board defended the practice of including senior staff, saying “learning first-hand the services the other high-performing jurisdictions provide directly to schools is beneficial to department-based staff as well as those working directly in schools.” Over the years, people from finance, IT, and communications have “improved services to schools and students” after learning from other places, education director J. Philip Parappally, said in an email through communications manager, Miguelo.

The bulk of these trips fall under the “jurisdictional learning policy,” when “an organized group from the board attends another high-performing educational jurisdiction.” But for some staff, the money spent was allowed under professional development.

Susan Logue, the Superintendent of Education, Well-Being and Engagement, who went on a conference to Hawaii in December, said she took part in discussions around “educational equity for each child” and said the “learning from the conference was valuable, directly related to my role, and has, and will continue to, benefit the students and the organization.”

She said superintendents are given “self-directed professional development funds annually, according to superintendents’ employment contract terms and conditions. All requests must be approved in accordance with board policies and provincial guidelines,” said Logue, in an email. “I was within the allotted amount for the fiscal year and was reimbursed only the amount within the allocation.”

According to documents, Logue spent $1,600 on a hotel during the two-day conference (she says it was three days), and spent more than the allowed $2,500 for flight and hotel. The conference fee was an additional $550.

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This is not the first time the board’s travel has come under scrutiny.

In 2012, the board, with Anna DeBartolo as the chair, was criticized for excessive travel by the ministry after Silverman filed access to information requests and found the board spent more than $130,000 on travel to Finland, New Zealand and London. At the time, the provincial minister of education, intervened and placed a six-month moratorium on international travel for York trustees.

It was after this, the current jurisdictional learning policy was born “that required reports to be prepared and made available to the public,” according to the board. “The policy doesn’t specify how information is made available or timelines for when a report must be made, and this needs to change,” said Parappally, in an email.

That’s why for all the travel the board staff has taken, there are few publicly available reports online. Just last month, the board published two reports for the Europe trips last year, but only after months of public pressure.

Other than those two reports, Silverman said he’s only found two others from 2013 and 2014, describing the learning exchange in London. According to one 2014 report available online, since 2000 more than 150 board staff have travelled to Tower Hamlets and Hackney, among the lowest socio-economic areas in London, to “observe high-leverage strategies in school districts that are in challenging circumstances.”

But the conclusions from the 2014 visit, where more than 30 staff and trustees have gone since, lack specifics.

“Each participant was able to identify key learning ‘take-aways’ that will be incorporated into their own schools,” the report says.

In addition, the Star asked the director about any specific benefit the trips to London, the Netherlands and Finland have had for the board, but no details were provided.

Current chair Loralea Carruthers says there is a need to improve transparency around travel in the board.

“We are already conducting a thorough review of the policies that govern these type of expenditures,” said Carruthers, adding the board has put a “limit (on) any international travel expenses until the review is complete and new policies are in place to better govern these expenses.”

“We have to bring in accountability on these expenses, and I’m extremely disappointed this did not already exist to the level necessary,” she said.

Parappally says he will be “recommending changes to the policy to ensure consistency and that, going forward, reports are available to the public in a timely manner.”

But Silverman believes it’s time to eliminate the culture of international travel at the board to make it the exception, not the rule.

“I believe the travel budget should be set after the needs of students are fully met,” said Silverman, adding trustees should be forbidden from leaving North America, and all travel outside Ontario by board staff should be approved by the trustees.

“The trustees are supposed to be the stewards of the budget and should have a greater obligation to the taxpayers of York Region to get this under control. I believe we need to abandon our quest in the Netherlands, Finland and England and look for Canadian solutions to the region’s problems.”

Education Minister Mitzie Hunter expects boards to be open and accountable, and that “transparent school board governance is essential to elevating public confidence in our education system,” said spokesperson Richard Francella.

He noted the minister ordered two troubleshooters to look into concerns at the board because “we believe swift action is critical to restore public confidence in the York Region District School Board, which is why we have launched this review.

“At the end of the review process, the reviewers will submit a report to the minister that provides her with recommendations on how she may direct the board to ensure effective board governance that promotes equity, increases accountability and transparency, and builds public confidence,” he said.

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